Mervat Essa lives in a small town in northern Israel not far from the town in which her grandmother lived until Al Nakba. These ceramic sacks memorialize the depopulation of Al Biram and other Palestinian villages in 1948. These villages were completely razed, its residents driven into exile, its buildings and natural resources left to waste. MADE IN PALESTINE Bethlehem
Secrets live in the space between our footsteps.
The words of my grandfather echoed in my dreams,
as the years kept his beads and town.
I saw Bethlehem, all in dust, an empty town
with a torn piece of newspaper lost in its narrow streets.
Where could everyone be? Graffiti and stones answered.
And where was the real Bethlehem--the one my grandfather came from?
Handkerchiefs dried the pain from my hands. Olive trees and tears continued to remember.
I walked the town until I reached an old Arab man dressed in a white robe.
I stopped him and asked, "Aren't you the man I saw in my grandfather's stories?"
He looked at me and left. I followed him--asked him why he left? He continued walking.
I stopped, turned around and realized he had left me the secrets
in the space between his footsteps.
POETRY
Nathalie Handal
Mahmoud Darwish
Fadwa Tuqwan
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Lives-of-Rain/Nathalie-Handal/e/9781566566025#TOC
"The anthology was prepared to eradicate invisibility," writes Nathalie Handal (The Never Field) of Poetry of Arab Women: A Contemporary Anthology. With research help from groups like RAWI (Radius of Arab-American Writers, Inc.) and from Arab-American newspapers and journals like Al Jadid, Handal has gathered work from "most of the older and newer contemporary voices" of the Arab diaspora over 80 poets writing in Arabic, French, English and other languages, and living in Syria, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Yemen, Gaza and the U.S. Handal's introduction, along with biographical notes on the poets and many translators, helps to place them. ( Apr.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
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